3d text trick

On a new comp, type your word.
Pre-render and use the pre-rendered version and duplicate the layer about 10-20, depending on how good you want the text to look as 3d.

Then make all of them 3d (the little 3d box). Use the last digits on the Position line and change all f them to a different number. I used 5.0, 10.0, 15.0 and so on until I was finished.

Then bring that comp into your main comp and press the little star (Collapse for transformation) because at firs you won't be able to see what you did, but you need to click that button in order to see the changes. After clicking that button you have to make that text comp 3d. You then toggle with the figures in the last row on the X,Y and Z positions and see your 3D text in action.

Short cut keys

Ok, so I have to jot this down quick before I forget.
In AE, if you want to bring your object up to the time line, just put the timeline cursor to where you want the object to start appearing and hold alt and the { and the object will start there.

To get your object to end in a particular place, just hold down alt and press } and it will end there.

When you select an object on the time line and you want to know where it actually begins, click on it and press "i" and the cursor will go to that exact point. You can press "o" if you want it to go to the end.

I also learnt a simple code for AE. I press "s" and hold alt and click the stop watch. Then type in wiggle(4,100) and press "enter". DO NOT PRESS RETURN. That would just make a new line. This code makes the object wiggle all around. It's really cool!

If you want to preview a particular part or clip in your project, put the cursor where you want to start preview and press "b", then press "0" on the number part.

I also know how to freeze the last frame of the movie clip in the time line. Right click on the clip. Time >> Enable Time Remapping and you can stretch the last clip to how ever long you want it.

When in doubt use Anchor

So I stumbled on some thing that made my job a whole lot easier.
I was trying to make my dancers fly in from the left and then after a couple of seconds, drop down. But every time I tried to do this in AfterEffects with the position stopwatch, I ended up with them moving in a circle no matter what I tried.
I decided to try the anchor stopwatch, which works fine. So I used the position one to make them fly in from the left and the Anchor point to make them drop down off of the page.

Progress

So I have been keying out certain clips from the footage I shot so that I can put them into AfterEffects. I found out some thing cool that I think might be a benefit to some one.

When I saved the movie in FinalCut Pro with the green screen like I said before. When I keyed it out in AfterEffects I realised that I had some edges on some of the clips that I didn't notice in Final Cut. I started to panic and thought that I had to do over the whole keying thing again, but AfterEffects must have had some thing to use.

Under the same Keylight Effect there is an option right at the bottom that says Source Crops. It allows you to crop the video and better yet, you can key frame it. So if your subject keeps moving, like mine, you can key frame the crop from left to right and so on just as your subject is moving like that.

I can show you what I'm talking about with the problem with the sides. Youre going to have to wait until the final project to see the correction.

Eureka!!!

So I now feel as if I am getting some where in this project. I really have to work on a story board now if I'm going to get any further.

We had a small example, but we added a preset background from AfterEffects and changed the colour of it.

I also learned how to change the colour of my video.

I realised that I had save my footage in Final Cut Pro with a green screen so that I can just key it out in Aftereffects.

Anyways, I change the colour of my video and even added a gradient.
To change the color of your footage. Go into Effect >> Generate >> Fill and you can change it to what even colour you want.

You can go back into Effect >> Generate >> Ramp and create a gradient effect on the already coloured footage.

It's so cool! I have so many ideas now. Must get to work.
Here's a snapshot of it.

New inspiration

Sorry Monique...this video just grabbed me.

Taking out the blue

Ok, so I'm having some trouble keying out the blue when it comes to the wide angle footage. I'm using Final Cut pro to do the keying out cause I find it easier to do in After Effects.

There is a method that works for me in Final Cut Pro. If the lightning is good as I said in my previous blog then this method should work for you.
1. First use Color Smoothing - 4:1:1 depending on the type of equipment you use. This filter improves the overall quality of the chroma keys.

You use 4:1:1 with NTSC or PAL DV-25 video sources so that is what i used.

2. Secondly, I used the Chroma Keyer. There is a colour chart thingy that you would have to adjust to the colour that you want to key out. You also have to dabble with the Saturation, luma, edge thin, softening and enhance to get what you want.

3. Lastly, add the Matte Choker filter. It will help to remove some of the fuzzy edges that you have.

Green turns blue

So I did my video shoot yesterday and it was a task. Getting he equipment was a big task and setting up took longer than i expected.

At first I only had three lights and one umbrella. Had to get three more umbrellas, one more light and a reflector.

I ended up using a blue screen instead of a green one because that was what was available.

The blue screen (tough blue cloth) was spread over three tall partitions and fastened with thumbtacks. We then set up the lights, two at a 45 degree angle and the others more like 25 degrees.

We had to use umbrellas for all of the lights so that we could get a soft light effect. There were only three umbrellas so we had to use a reflector (i.e. silver, shiny material to reflect the light).

The room was fairly big but we took one corner and set up there. We had to experiment moving the lights around, with a subject there, to try to eliminate as much shadow on the blue screen as possible.

Final project

For my final project I am doing a music video. I am using Timberlee's Heels, as the music. I have two dancers that I will like to use.

I was trying to get the artiste to be in my video but no luck so far. I have two options if she decides to be in the video or not.

With out Timberlee, I am going to use type and dancers to illustrate the video. Here's an example:


Mine would not be as fantastic as this one, but you get the idea.

If she does decide to participate, she will stand
out and I will bring the dancers alive with different colours. Here's an example:



I have asked two dancers that live on my hall to help me out as weel as the beautiful and talentd Miss Sheroma Hodge of BrassAngel Designs.

Back in a Flash! (CS3)

You can use flypaper.com to create flash content. (Only a windows version)
Swishzone.com
sproutbuilder.com
slideshare.com

As long as the symbol is on the stage, it is an instance.

You can write your actionscript separately and import it in.

We put the actionscript of the buttons on the timeline. We named the frames and the buttons so that you could use the following script on the first key frame.

stop();
this.square_btn.onRelease= function() {
gotoAndStop("face");
};

square_btn is the name of my button that i was using to.....

some script
this.square_button.onRelease = function(){
getURL("http://plone.org", "_blank");
}

this.square_button_2.onRelease = function(){
getURL("http://ubergeek.tv", "_blank");
}
stop();